Ri Essay

Chemistry, Medicine, and Life

There are many advancements in the field of medicine today due to the breakthroughs in chemistry. These breakthroughs would not have been possible if it was not for the constantly improving technology. The history of chemistry in medicine not only shows these technological advancements, but also helps people realize that we have so many more discoveries to make and have yet to touch our full potential in the scientific community.

Let’s go back to 2003. In that year, two doctors won the Nobel Prize while, ironically, two chemists won the medicine prize. These chemists won that prize for discovering that there are channels in cell membranes. There are ions that are constantly passing through cells, which is critical for a cell to function. The article discusses how cells have a lipid bilayer, which is a big discovery. However, this is a widely known fact today. One could open any recent biology textbook and find out about a cell’s lipid bilayer is hydrophic (water-fearing) on the inside and hydrophilic on the outside. It is amazing how in 7 years a new discovery has become a widely known fact in the scientific community. This shows the progression of chemistry over time and how it helps medicine. The discovery of this bilayer helps chemists better understand the cell’s functions and helps doctors better understand how the functions of the cell affect our bodies. Finally, this article shows that some of the major writers concerned with medical chemistry come from popular medical universities such as Johns Hopkins University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

By 2007, more technological advances have been made and there have been more improvements in the field of medicine. The article “New HIV drugs edge towards approval” talks about two new drugs that have been made to treat HIV. These drugs have been tested and created to prevent people from becoming resistant to them. This shows technological advancement because the other...